


The One Where Sebastian is Actual Royalty

by Rodimiss



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, POV First Person, which was entirely a way to avoid having to subscribe gendered pronouns to hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-16 01:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5807788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rodimiss/pseuds/Rodimiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s told them he holds royal titles in Starkhaven a dozen times already. No one believes him and no one bothers to verify.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where Sebastian is Actual Royalty

**Author's Note:**

> based on [this tumblr text post](http://wardencommanderrodimiss.tumblr.com/post/137829197869/kylofinndameron-kylofinndameron-modern-au)
> 
> shameless self-promoting link to [this fic on my tumblr](http://wardencommanderrodimiss.tumblr.com/post/137929672474/the-one-where-sebastian-is-actual-royalty)

Varric claims that Kirkwall isn't the seediest city in southern Thedas -- Tevinter's cities obviously holding the title in all of Thedas -- but I don't believe him, because he also says that Val Royeaux isn't the worst, and it has to be one or the other. ("It doesn't have to be. You're biased because you're Fereldan." "No, Orlais is objectively terrible. Science has proved it.") 

There are, apparently, lots of good things about Kirkwall, but as a point of counterbalance I will provide the evidence of the Hanged Man. It is, objectively, the worst place in Kirkwall, which is why Varric and I have a table named after us there. "Table Tethras-and-Hawke, usable only by they or their compatriots" and this is what my life has come to.

The christening was a beautiful moment. Isabela insisted we christen it like a ship, so Fenris smashed a bottle of cheap wine from some other bar across it. (We had to clean up the glass ourselves.) I proudly proclaimed the newest member of the Hawke family, and Carver just asked if it could replace me, instead. Anders asked why it was "Tethras-and-Hawke" instead of both our first names or both our last names, why it was Varric's last and my first, and I guess that's what happens when half of the friend group only _has_ a first name, that you forget that the name that someone commonly goes by might not be it. (To be fair, only Aveline and the twins know my first name; the twins because duh, and Aveline because your full name gets on your criminal record. Varric might not know my first name, but to his credit, he at least knows that _Hawke_ is not it.)

But anyway, the table really should be named after Sebastian, because he's the one that pays our tabs. (Wonder of all wonders, it took four months of this before Isabela finally cracked and couldn't refrain from calling him our sugar daddy, at which point half of us nearly choked to death on our drinks, and Carver got up and walked out of the bar and didn't come back for the rest of the night. I admire his dedication to shaming us. It didn't work -- Isabela at least is unshameable -- but the effort is commendable.)

Seb is That Guy who's the one percent of the one percent and probably has never worked a real day in his life, so you desperately want to hate him, but you can't because he's so damned _nice_. Varric and Anders claim to legitimately, actually hate him, but they're lying to themselves. You can't hate a guy who you've insulted to his face but he keeps paying for your drinks. You can't. (Get enough alcohol in Varric and he'll actually admit this; Anders has some freakish capability to never get drunk, at least not that anyone has ever seen, but I'll find some other way to get a confession.)

The only reason the table _isn't_ named for Sebastian is that it was already named by the time we met him. He's the latecomer -- sort of replacing Carver, because Carver is I guess too cool to hang out with us much anymore or maybe he just doesn't want to get herpes by accidentally touching the walls or the floor with bare skin -- but trying to remember life before Sebastian is remembering some foggy and insubstantial sort of life, something that was shallow and hollow but didn't seem it at the time, not until the missing piece appeared and everything was golden and light.

("I'm writing that one down," Varric says, and Anders gives me this _look_ and says, "Oh, yes, you're the shallow one, waxing poetic about not having to pay your own tab" and then he knocks back a shot like that's going to help save him from the rest of us, disregarding the fact that, you know, he's not paying for that shot either. I would have made the argument that I am not shallow, Sebastian is not our friend just because he buys us stuff, have you _seen_ his face, and surrounding myself with attractive people is how I fool everyone into thinking that I have a great personality, but that was when Sebastian walked in and I didn't really feel like making it awkward, especially since Isabela revived the sugar daddy joke the other day.)

Varric claims that he doesn't like Sebastian because he's a compulsive liar, which is funny because Varric is a compulsive liar, but Varric also claims that because he announces this fact ahead of time, he is excused, while Sebastian is the kind of filthy liar that doesn't have the courtesy to tell you and you just have to figure it out for yourself from the fact that _obviously_ he is not _royalty._ "Royalty does not hang out with commoners in shitty bars in the south side of Kirkwall," I have told him about a dozen times. "This is fact. Also, lying is a sin."

"Since when have you ever personally cared about what is or is not a sin?" Sebastian asks, which is, admittedly, also fact: I have never set foot in a chantry for any reason that wasn't illegal. "Aren't you wealthy too?" he continues, which, _wealthy_ is an understatement to describe him. I could pay everyone's tabs, sure, but making sure that Anders and Fenris can keep their utilities running every month is the sort of thing I could only dream of doing, but Sebastian does without blinking. "You could find far better places to spend your time."

"Nowhere else has a table named after me," I say, which is the kind of reasoning that's perfectly sound when you're drunk. "Also I wasn't _born_ rich so I didn't grow up with any standards."

"That's just a problem with you," Carver says, which is true but uncalled for, and doesn't explain why he and Bethany actually hang out with us either. Bethany laughs, which is also uncalled for. 

See, if _Varric_ was that rich, and we asked _him_ how he got his money, and he decided he wanted to lie about it, he would have a different story every time we asked, instead of just doggedly adamantly insisting that he's the Duke of Wherever in Starkhaven, which is like, fourth in line to the throne, and bullshit. (Varric is borderline rich but doesn't lie about it, and he, like me, wasn't born with it, and he, like me, has no standards. Sebastian is the sort of person who looks like he has standards.)

"It's sort of like a second home, here," Merrill says. "It would feel wrong to find somewhere else. Even if it might have better drinks."

"Yeah. Yeah. That." She said it much better than I could while sober, probably. "But, like, we were all established here long ago, when we didn't have money. It's nostalgic. But like, you..." And I don't know what I was going to say, because then I saw a dog through the window, and the train of thought crashed in an epic fireball.

Bethany, my dear sweet innocent sister, is either too naive or too kind, because she either believes Sebastian or humors him. She asks him about Starkhaven a lot -- okay, he's clearly from Starkhaven, the accent is unmistakable -- but she asks about his family, too, the "royal line of Vaels" or whatever bullshit. "It would be easy for google to clear up your disbelief," Sebastian says one night, when he and Bethany are sitting with their heads together, him showing her pictures on his phone of his family, and someone makes some comment about the persistent lie. I'm not sure who it was; I was listening more to the argument going past my head between Fenris and Isabela about whether or not it's okay for WalMart t-shirts and sweatpants to be the only articles of clothing one owns.

"I try to think about all of you as little as possible when I'm not here," Aveline says. That's a hard thing to do, because someone-or-other is getting arrested or she's bending some rule or misdirecting some patrol to _keep_ someone from getting arrested. 

I try to tell him that means he's won, if he has us convinced enough that we actually need to check to disprove it, but it comes out as a garble of words and a faceplant upon the table. Bethany places her face in her hands. I need to stop being so embarrassing, or else she's going to end up at the nearest warden recruitment office like Carver did.

Carver, despite being important and a warden and clearly cooler than us, still ends up back in the bar when he's home on leave. The Hanged Man is gravitational center of our lives, a black hole that no one can ever quite break free of, no matter how far you run. He's telling us about how the work sucks but it's important and he gets to see more of Thedas than he or any Hawke ever expected to, when Sebastian enters, and Carver stops talking immediately and points at him across the table. "You. Seriously, why the _fuck_ is a duke of Starkhaven hanging around in the worst part of Kirkwall all the time?"

Sebastian smiles. "I would've had a betting pool going on who would utilize google first," he says, "but a pool of two doesn't work."

"Seriously, why?" Carver asks, and then he stops. "Wait, two?"

"Hi," Bethany says.

"Oh, no, he's dragged another one down in the den of lies," Varric says. "Hawke, you need to teach your siblings to be less trusting."

"Do none of you know how to look on Wikipedia?" Carver demands.

"If we checked then that means he and his lies won," I say, because this time I'm not enough drinks in to not be able to explain that, although maybe I didn't explain it well, because Carver's looking at me like I'm nuts, and he reaches out and puts a hand on either side of my face.

"You dense motherfucker."

Bethany's face is turning pink because she can't stop giggling, and Carver takes out his phone and starts typing something. _"Wikipedia,"_ he says, and then we're all crowded around him looking over his shoulder at the screen as he pulls up...

"Oh, wow, you really are royalty," Isabela says. Varric throws his hands up and makes for the bar.

Merrill claps her hands to her face. "Oh no!" she says. "Is there some title we should have been calling you by? I'm sorry!"

"It's okay, it's okay," Sebastian says. "If it really mattered, I would have just shown the Wikipedia page myself."

"Unbelievable," Anders grumbles. Varric returns with a dozen shots and passes two to Anders, two to me, takes three for himself, and leaves the rest for everyone else.

"Okay, but if you are legitimate royalty," Fenris says, "then surely if you wanted something done, you had people at your disposal, and didn't need to hire Hawke and the rest of us from Craigslist."

Sebastian shrugs. "Well, I was never the favorite son." He smiles -- nay, smirks -- into his Sprite glass like he was intentionally playing us this whole time, instead of actually telling the truth and watching us play ourselves.

"But why would you _persist_ in choosing to spend time here?" Aveline asks, and now instead of these being hypothetical questions to disprove Sebastian being royalty, they're legitimate questions, presumably with answers, though I can't begin to fathom what.

Maybe I _do_ have a great personality.

"Why do you?" Sebastian asks her, which is also a question I ask myself. Why Aveline spends time with us, I mean.

"I was friends with the Hawke family long before we chose this bar as our home, and on most days, I enjoy their company more than I hate this place. But you, Sebastian, should have turned and run the first time Hawke invited you out with us and you saw the kind of establishments that we frequent."

He shrugs again, and I'm starting to get the feeling that he doesn't really even know. If I have to guess, now, I'd say boredom. We're interesting people, at least. "I like the food," he says.

"Well," Varric mutters, "at least I can still call you a damned dirty liar. No one likes the Hanged Man's food."


End file.
